Rae Ann Fera2015-03-31T16:50:25-04:00Rae Ann Ferahttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=rae-ann-feraCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rae Ann FeraGood old fashioned elbow grease.20 Most Perfect Pairings Of Songs And TV Ads From The Past 20 Yearstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-11-22T09:59:55-05:002013-11-22T12:26:29-05:00Rae Ann Ferahttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rae-ann-fera/
The video, which has racked up over 40 million views in a week, was in fact a commercial for Volvo. The point was to demonstrate the stability and precision of Volvo's Dynamic Steering, though one could argue it's greater purpose was to demonstrate that, at 53, JCVD is still simply physically superior to all of us.

Athleticism and vehicular performance aside, one of the most remarkable aspects of this ad is how unexpected and how perfect the use of Enya's "Only Time" is. That got us thinking about other amazing uses of songs in commercials. Where licensing a song to an ad was once street-cred suicide, the relationship between advertiser and music artist has changed drastically. Now, bands often look for a commercial deal with the hopes of breaking into the mainstream or paying for a concert tour. That willingness to partner with brands looking to make their ad a little more special than the rest has yielded some entertaining and effective collaborations.

Here, we look at 20 of the best uses of licensed music in ads over the past 20 years and offer a view as to why they worked so well.

]]>Beautiful, Bizarre and Low-Budget Animation Brought Music Videos Back From The Brink (WATCH)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27251832013-02-20T13:35:29-05:002013-05-15T22:28:17-04:00Rae Ann Ferahttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rae-ann-fera/
Musicians continued making music, of course, and directors still found ways to add picture to sound, but the trickle-down effect on budgets was significant. With no mass TV audience, the mass money for music videos shriveled away.

But as with so much filmmaking, technology has made the future much rosier. Posting gorgeous high-definition videos online is no big thing, and the tools to tell fantastical stories are as accessible as they've ever been. In their new incarnation, music videos have more of a DIY vibe. Bands, labels and video commissioners can reach out directly to willing filmmakers through sites like Genero.tv or Radar Music Videos. Artists themselves can grab a camera, a few fabulous friends and whip together a video. Videos can be crowdsourced. Or photosharing technologies, such as Instagram, can provide moody montage-fodder (though please don't let this become a trend). It's all a little Wild West once again, save for the inevitable big-budget star vehicles (we're looking at you, Kanye), and the fortunate directors (and production companies) that score decent budgets from established artists.

The other piece of this puzzle of accessible filmmaking is animation. With software kits available from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars (which is miniscule in the grand scheme of things), directors both upstart and established are able to create whatever worlds their imagination (and technical know-how) can conjure. To wit, German film student Kaleb Lechowski recently made waves in Hollywood for making this mind-boggling student film for... wait for it... zero dollars. And quite frankly, when it comes to music videos it's the animated ones that are often more story-rich - not to mention pretty or hallucinatory or just in glorious defiance of the laws of physics.

With animation on the mind - I curate Packaged Goods, a bimonthly screening series featuring short form filmmaking at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and the next one is dedicated to the art - it seemed fitting to share some of the most beautiful, bizarre, nightmarish, whimsical, and otherwise impossible to create IRL animated worlds I've found recently that were created without Kanye-sized bags of cash. Not only are these videos creatively and technically great (IMHO), they're also a bellwether for the possibilities of a creative video format that's returned from the brink only to find itself culturally relevant once again.